Some known cutting devices, such as circular saws, are designed to be used to cut a workpiece while the user is standing or crouching (bending over) and one foot is (or both feet are) on the workpiece. For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-089101 discloses a cutting device designed to cut a workpiece while the user is standing. This cutting device has a D-shaped handle that can be grasped by the user to hold and control the cutting device. The D-shaped handle extends from a portion of the main body of the cutting device rearward of the rotary blade so that the handle extends rearward, by a relatively large distance, from a rear end of a base that supports the main body. The cutting device further includes an electric motor serving as the drive device for the rotary blade. The electric motor has a motor shaft whose axis intersects the rotational axis of a spindle, on which the rotary blade is mounted. Therefore, the motor shaft extends along a direction parallel to the cutting plane of the rotary blade. A high precision and relatively expensive reduction gear train operably couples the output shaft of the electric motor to the spindle. For example, a suitable reduction gear train is a hypoid gear train manufactured by the Gleason Corporation of Rochester, N.Y. that includes an output spiral bevel gear and an input spiral bevel gear arranged such that their rotational axes are offset from each other.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2011-183463 and its family member US 2011/0214547 disclose a cutting device having a relatively small size. The cutting device has a circular, elongated (or rod-shaped) handle extending from a rearward portion of the main body of the cutting device and rearward of the rotary blade. In this cutting device, an electric motor serves as the drive device and is arranged such that its motor shaft extends parallel to the spindle that rotatably drives the rotary blade.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2015-178154 and its family member US 2015/0266201 disclose a cutting device (portable circular saw) having a handle that is attached to the motor housing at a position substantially corresponding to a rear half of a fixed cover of the main body and near a rotary blade.
In many known designs for portable cutting devices (e.g., circular saws), the handle extends from the tool main body in the vicinity of substantially the rear half of the fixed cover that covers the rotary blade (on the side of the fixed cover opposite of an open side that exposes the circular saw blade, i.e. the side of the fixed cover adjacent to the motor housing) and is at least partially proximal (adjacent) to the rotary blade that cuts a workpiece, similar to the handle arrangement disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2015-178154 and US 2015/0266201. This arrangement of the handle is intended to ensure that the portion of the main body that supports the handle is sufficiently rigid (strong) to stiffly support the handle and prevent possible bending of the handle at (about) the support portion, which may be caused by an externally-applied force. The rigidity (or stiffness) of the portion of the main body that supports the handle will be hereinafter called “support rigidity.” On the other hand, in the handle arrangements disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication Nos. 2003-089101 and 2011-183463 and US 2011/0214547, the handle is designed to extend rearward, by a relatively large distance, from a portion of the tool main body adjacent to the rear half of the fixed cover. Therefore, these handle arrangements may exhibit insufficient support rigidity at the handle support portion.